| The Chronicles | Jack's Inflamed Thigh Muscle | ||||||
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Hanging Out I spent most of the week after the wedding relaxing, recovering, and messing up my sleeping schedule. After being super-social for a few days, I briefly recoiled back to anti-social. Actually, that's not completely true. I'd sent a few e-mails and made a few calls and wasn't hearing back. Just as I was starting to feel a bit mopey, the guys (Glenn, David A, Jordan, Zac, and Jeremy) called on Saturday and made their way up to hang out. I figured I'd give Evan a call while I was at it. Turns out, he was hanging out with Patrick. I swung over to Patrick's, had a good talk with them, and then brought them back over to my place. We mostly did the hang out by the pool and talk thing. It's pretty amusing to watch Glenn and Patrick get into philosophical and theological debates. Evan passed out in my bed at some point, so I found another free bed until 5:30am when he woke me up and asked me if I could take him back to Patrick's to get his car. I hadn't really been sleeping well, so I didn't mind. Then, at 9:30am, Patrick awoke and asked if I could take him home. Again, I didn't really mind. The rest of that week is mostly a blur. I remember staying up late and getting to know Jialin a lot better, but other than that, I don't recall anything particularly significant. Turnaround Trip Late in the week, Glenn threw out the idea of going to Cedar Point Park. Considering Scotty and my brother had previously and separately suggested going, I figured it was time to take action. Glenn, Ira, my brother, and I piled in the car late Friday night and drove to Sandusky, Ohio. We intended to take shifts driving, but I ended up volunteering to drive the whole 9 hours assuming I could sleep on the way back. I guess with my sleeping schedule, I wasn't really tired. Glenn, Ira, and I had some interesting guy discussions while Ray slept. At some point after the sun came up, Glenn made us listen to a CD with a comedian that reverses consonants. "A lunch of bosers", "a haming flypocrite", etc. We amused ourselves for quite a while trying to come up with our own and it became a running joke for the trip. Coasters Galore After taking backroads through northern Ohio, we arrived just after the park opened. For those of you that are unaware, Cedar Point, which is situated on a peninsula on Lake Erie, is widely considered the rollercoaster capital of the world. It's a place that seems straight out of Rollercoaster Tycoon. Upon entering, we got in line for Raptor. Looking around we noticed several things...the people definitely looked midwestern and no one sat on the railings (despite the lack of signs prohibiting it). My brother felt quite out of place with his somewhat shaggy hair. Anyway, we waited in line for a little over an hour before boarding the Batman-like coaster. Turns out that it was better than Batman. It was a good start to the day. Next, we rode Blue Streak which is a classic wooden coaster. Unfortunately, it couldn't really compare to the Great American Scream Machine. Afterwards, we noticed an arcade with two DDR Extremes and stopped to play briefly. My brother really can't resist a good crowd. Unperturbed by Blue Streak, we moved on to Millenium Force. While in line, we amused ourselves by thinking of pick-up lines. The best ones that we could come up with: (we wanted something that would initially offend, but the second part is still too wordy and it's difficult to make it not sound gay) (Glenn came up with it and almost used it) Oh, another note about the Millenium Force line...they had a DJ who sat in a shaded booth. The guy actually said "Yeah...yeah...yeah" in the background of the music. I kind of felt bad for him. I mean, can you really gain any sort of DJing credibility working a line at an amusement park? You can tell that we had to find some way to occupy the two hours in line. It was well worth it though. The ride was great. Most amazing inital hill in the history of coasters. I think it's 310 feet or so and you feel like you go straight up forever. Parkin' It Up From there, we went to the back of the park and took a breather riding the swings. We noticed that the girl running the ride spoke with an Eastern European accent, so I started teaching Glenn some Russian. As I was doing that, a young girl in line noticed and asked if I was Russian (because she was). We had a bit of a conversation about the language and I got a clarification on how to say "I can speak Russian" ("Ya mozhe govereet pa-Russki"). At some point during the day, Ray suggested an interesting game. I hesitate to mention this because I get the feeling I'm going to catch huge amounts of flak from the female audience for being shallow, but in the interest of full-disclosure, here goes nothing. Basically, you got a point if you talked to a girl. Two points if you talked and got a response or if you used a pick-up line. Three points if you used a pick-up line and got a positive response. Four points if you used a pick-up line and received a pick-up line in response. Oh, and a bonus point if the girl was with her boyfriend (which all of us agreed was rather classless and below us). Now, before you start yelling...this was basically just a confidence boosting game. You don't talk to people purely to be fake. You talk to someone because you want to. It just motivates you to be a bit more social than normal. For a true example...I noticed that a girl had some nice glasses. Normally, I might not have said anything. In this case, the game motivated me to vocalize that compliment. Neither the compliment nor me wanting to talk to her were fake. Blah...I think I've done a horrible job explaining this. Does anyone else see what I'm saying or was it a really horrible game? I don't think I plan on playing it again if enough people view it as offensive. Back to the park...we rode a couple of wooden coasters (Mean Streak & Gemini) that surpassed the Georgia Cyclone. Then we met a couple of girls that prove the idea that it seems ridiculously impossible to know if a girl is 14 or 19 these days. I'll get pictures up in a few days. They rode Magnum, Iron Dragon, and Mantis with us. Iron Dragon sucked, but the other two were excellent. After Mantis, the girls excused themselves to the bathroom and didn't come back. Seems to be a recurring theme around here. hehe. By that point, it was quite dark and most of the rides were closed (Top Thrill Dragster & Disaster Transport), so we headed back to the gigantic arcade for a bit. I noticed that in the back, they had some really really old machines. Like pinball and arcade games from the 70's. Some of the stuff wasn't even electronic. We played DDR a bit more and met two more girls in the process. They seemed nice, so we got dinner with them after leaving the park. Again, pictures will be forthcoming. Leaving the diner, I volunteered to drive again despite having been up 40 hours at that point. I really wasn't that tired though. After an hour or two of driving though...it really started to hit me. I traded out and slept the rest of the trip and most of the next day after we got back. Packin' It Up Sunday night I called Jordan, David A, Glenn, and David W to talk about going backpacking with them. I figured that I wasn't going to let them go off for four days and miss all the fun. David W was pretty adamant about me going on a different trip at first. After they found me some gear though, they seemed to soften up. I'm really grateful that they did. Day One We all met at Jordan's on Monday morning and packed our bags. The average pack weight was probably around 40 pounds. It doesn't sound very bad at first. The drive to Great Smoky National Park was a bit sickening. The road had to be one of the windiest (dammit...'windy' and 'windy' are spelled the same) I'd ever been on. Once we got there though, I was fine, and we set out on the trail. At some point, I started to feel pain surging through muscles I didn't know that I had. It wasn't my feet or ankles so much as my inner thighs. I'd vowed not to really complain at all on the trip as the guys had been kind enough to let me go at the last second. And really, what's the point in complaining anyway? I just pushed through the pain. I kept thinking each step would be my last...and kept amazing myself when it wasn't. My body kept saying, "Ow. I hurt. Normally we stop when it hurts like this." My mind kept saying, "Shut the hell up, pansy." I'm starting to feel like Edward Norton..."I am Jack's inflamed thigh muscle." When we were about half-way there, we stopped for a break. I sat down on a rock for a moment before hearing a rustling beside me. I looked down and noticed a snake about a foot from where I was sitting. Needless to say, I jumped up. It was only a couple of feet long and it wasn't poisonous, but I hope you'll excuse the initial reaction. For some reason, Glenn sat down nearby after we saw it, stood up when it got close, and it was gone. Apparently, it had scurried into the ground pad on his back. After he got up, he hopped out the other end and slithered away. Anyway, we saw another one later on the hike that looked about the same. After hiking up the mountain, we reached a bald and set up camp. Soon after, it began raining. Our timing with getting the tents up couldn't have been much better. After napping a while, we noticed the rain had subsided and we went to watch the sunset on the bald. Unfortunately, it was quite foggy (hey, they're not called Smoky for nothing). However, it was still pretty and we managed to catch our first glimpse of a mammal. There was a rabbit that hopped around nearby in the twilight. Soon after, we ate dinner (Oatmeal Crushed Pies for dessert), talked for a while, and went to bed.  Day Two Awaking sore, we were greeted by a deer as we ate breakfast. I ate a pop-tart while the other guys poured water into bags of oatmeal. I was glad I brought pop-tarts. Most of the hike that day was flat with occasional ups and downs as we moved along the ridge. To distract from the hike, I pulled out the Navigator's Topical Memory System and we started memorizing Bible verses. The other guys got three or four memorized during the trip. I managed to get the first twelve (the "Living The New Life" section). I particularly liked Philippians 4:6-7 ("Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.") Around lunch time, we reached the shelter at Mollie's Ridge and stopped to eat. We also entertained ourselves by reading through the logbook. The funniest part was that 'bees' seemed to recur over and over in the entries. "Nice shelter, except for the bees!" "The bees! They're horrible!" "2:30pm: 32 bees dead. 2:38pm: 41 bees dead." We never really noticed any while we were there. Maybe they'd been exterminated by then. Late in the afternoon, we made it to the next shelter at Russell's Field. There were signs saying that it was closed due to bear activity, but we hadn't seen anything saying it was closed when we began our trek so we decided to stay anyway. It also had an interesting logbook that mentioned lots of bear sightings. In fact, we saw one too! He wasn't really all that close and he just mosied along the path, but it was still pretty cool. Regardless, we were glad that there was a chain link fence/wall protecting the open side of the shelter. We started a fire for dinner and attempted to dry out our clothes, but again it started raining. The clothes just ended up moist again from the dew after we woke up. Day Three Early in the day, we came across two more deer that were within fifteen to twenty feet of us. They really didn't seem very scared of us at all, but they weren't what I'd call tame either. I guess they just didn't know that they were supposed to fear humans. Anyway, we spent most of the day hiking downhill...which worked a whole new set of muscles in my back. Slight downhill isn't bad, but this was quite steep and it kept weaving across a stream. Eventually, the stream turned into a creek that had to be crossed many multiple times. At first, it wasn't too difficult just hopping from rock to rock. However, it got a bit trickier as time went on, and wading was required. Eventually, I got sick of switching between my shoes and Jordan's sandals and I just gave up and waded through with my pants legs rolled up and my shoes on. Seemed like a good enough idea at the time. The back of my heel begged to differ after my wet sock rubbed it raw. Regardless of the difficulty and frustration (when you'd cross momentarily only to cross right back), the terrain was really more varied and action-packed that day. It required some puzzle-solving and good balance, and that made it pretty fun. The campsite that we eventually arrived at was excellent. It was right next to a lake with lots of sunbathing rocks. I laid out for a while, but I doubt it did much. I'm sure most of you have heard me rant about this before, by I really hate my lack of melanin. My mom has freckles, but her tan hides them. My dad is pale and doesn't have freckles. My brother and sister are tan without freckles. Meanwhile, I get the pale skin with freckles. And, c'mon, folks...have freckles ever been attractive on a guy? Okay...so here's my real question. Which is better...paleness or freckles? Once we got the tents set up, it began to rain again. Turns out our weather timing was good on this trip. After a bit, it subsided and we had a Ramen dinner. David W and Jordan created an interesting concoction with noodles, shrimp flavoring, sardines, and Tang. Jordan said it was pretty gross. Early in the evening, we reminisced about our time at CCS. As it got dark, we sat around on some rocks that had been stacked into chairs next to the lake and stared up at the stars, waiting for a shooting star. We spent a great deal of time pretending to know something about astronomy before seeing one. As we were getting up to leave, a snake slithered out next to my foot and I had another jump. I must've been attracting them or something. After that, we went to bed. Day Four After having descended the previous day, we went back up the mountain. Lots and lots of steep uphill. It did not feel good on my inner thighs, but I kept going. After climbing 2000 feet in 2 miles, we reached the top of the ridge and continued up to a place called Shuckstack. It's basically a fire tower on the top of a peak. When David A described it, I figured I'd seen something like it before. Man, I was wrong. We climbed up on the roof of the tower and could see nothing but 360 degrees of wilderness and mountains. Sure, there was a lake and small dam, but the whole sight was a spectacle to be remembered. I'm not exactly afraid of heights, but I do get shaky sometimes. I'll probably sound weird, but I've got a bit of a jump impulse. It's not a death wish, and I'm not suicidal, but when I get close to the edge of something high, I think how easy it would be to jump. Anyone else get that way? Oh, while we were up there, we also saw two more deer up-close (5 feet) and the guys picked up a couple of non-venomous snakes. Lots of wildlife on this trip. After that, we hiked back down the mountain and along another creek. Fortunately this creek had bridges. Before long, we were back to the car. I don't remember a car seat ever feeling quite as comfortable. Nor do I recall half a can of Pringles tasting so good. Anyway, we loaded up our stuff and headed out. We were pretty hungry, so we stopped at Hardee's in the nearby town. It was a perfect opportunity to try one of their large burgers. Now I wish there was one in Auburn. As we were leaving the fast food joint, David A noticed the back of the cuff of my right pants leg had a reddish stain. "Is that blood?" "I don't know." I lifted up my pants leg and noticed the reddish stain was also on the back of my sock. Turns out, I'd really rubbed the back of my heel raw going downhill. I cleaned the wound once we got back to Jordan's. Epilogue When I got home, I grabbed a warm shower, caught up with E and Jialin, and e-mailed a few people. Sleeping in my nice, big, comfy bed was great. I really enjoyed the trip though. Gave me a good chance to hang out with the guys and do something I'd never done before. Thirty five miles on mountainous terrain with thirty pounds in four days is tough, but it was worth it in this case. As usual, give me a day or two for formatting and pictures. Even before adding anything, this is the second longest entry ever (beat the previous one), so congratulations if you made it all the way through. Oh, and the cast page is up in case you missed it. A funny link: Girls Suck. A link which vindicates me on lots of grammar stuff like apostrophes with acronyms: Ask Oxford. | |||||||
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